La Traviata at Aotea Centre

How many expected New Zealand Opera's La Traviata to open with an S&M party, featuring leather posing pouches, dog collars and Flora Bervoix as Hostess with a Whip?

We had been warned of director Dmitry Bertman's provocative takes on beloved classics, but Auckland has not seen the likes of this since Ken Russell's Madama Butterfly in the 90s.

Needless to say the opera chorus was kept busy, whether in lusty song or the many mimed scenes in which they floated on in Tatiana Tulubieva's crinolines and capes, bringing with them too many theatrical coups to count.

Igor Nezhny's set was dominated by giant doors which, like the sybaritic partygoers, swung every which way. Gliding around the stage, these doors could frame a nostalgic facade one moment, and close in for the brutal clinic of the final act.

In short, this was brilliant mise-en-scene which alone made the production well worth the price of its ticket.

Elvira Fatykhova was a Violetta of many colours, introduced as a nonchalant, scarf-twirling heroine with all the determination of a Verdian Meryl Streep. In the second act, vulnerabilities surfaced; by the third, she was shattered, isolated, waiting for death.

Fatykhova was relaxed with Verdi's coloratura in Ah forse lui and acquits herself with the purest of top A's at the end of Addio del passato, giving just the "fil de voce" (strand of voice) that Verdi asks for.

There was a powerful partnership between the soprano and Rodney Macann's Germont in the second act.

Their emotionally testing encounter came across with an almost cinematic immediacy and, if Macann's throat infection caused some vocal coarseness later, it was not evident in an exquisite Pura siccome un angelo.

Alfredo may not be Verdi's most memorable hero and Rafael Davila cleverly presented him as a naïve young man - indeed, at one point, Bertman hints at an uneasy closeness with his father. An interesting interpretation this, but vocally the singer had the same unrefined tone and uneasy pitch as he displayed last year in Carmen.

Smaller parts made their presence felt. Zan McKendree-Wright's dominatrix Flora, Rebecca Crabtree's sinister Annina and Malcolm Ede's ruthless, sexy Baron provided the most riveting characterisations.

In the pit, the Auckland Philharmonia, apart from some lamentable ensemble in the first few bars, did Verdi vigorous justice under the experienced baton of Julian Smith.

In a phrase: not to be missed.